Melting Point

By: Jun Park

This painting dramatically depicts the delicate balance that exists between nature and human activity. At the forefront is an iceberg that shines in hues of blue and white, depicting the purity of nature and its beauty found in unspoiled regions on Earth. However, around the iceberg lie scenes depicting destruction and pollution. Behind it, thick smoke billows from industrial chimneys that fill the sky with harmful clouds. Black oil spills through the dark water, spreading like a deadly poison. On the right, a forest fire rages,_xx_red and xXOrangeağmes that engulf everything in their path. Plastic bottles that lie scattered around the iceberg portray the level at which human garbage spills through oceans and reaches the uncharted regions around the world. The way the painting is arranged forces the viewer to shift their vision from the peacefulness that only nature can exhibit to the turmoil that human activity can cause.

Such a painting is strongly related to the contemporary environmental crisis that humanity currently faces. This painting portrays how human growth has traditionally meant the deterioration of the Earth, how it has meant that we pay for growth through the deterioration of the Earth. Such a painting also portrays how our growth causes harm to the Earth, thereby increasing the rate at which global warming affects our world, causing forest fires, and how our pollution through factories and plastic affects not only our world, our lands, and our oceans, but also how our harmful patterns reach distant lands, affecting them too. This painting, by its nature, has every aspect that contributes towards one system, that is, how air, land, and water are linked.